Noble House

by James Clavell

  He went for the stairs. Then he noticed an unlit portrait in a half-hidden alcove. He stopped. The oil painting was of an old gray-bearded sea captain with one eye, hook-nosed and arrogant, his face scarred, a cutlass on the table beside him.

  Bartlett gasped as he saw that the canvas was slashed and counter-slashed, with a short knife buried in the man’s heart, impaling the painting to the wall.

  Casey was staring at the knife. She tried to hide her shock. She was alone in the gallery, waiting uneasily. Dance music wafted up from below—rhythm and blues music. A short wind tugged the curtains and moved a strand of her hair. A mosquito droned.

  “That’s Tyler Brock.”

  Casey spun around, startled. Dunross was watching her. “Oh, I didn’t hear you come back,” she said.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to make you jump.”

  “Oh, that’s all right.”

  She looked back at the painting. “Peter Marlowe was telling us about him.”

  “He knows a lot about Hong Kong, but not everything, and not all his information’s accurate. Some of it’s quite wrong.”

  After a moment she said, “It’s … it’s a bit melodramatic, isn’t it, leaving the knife like that?”

  “Hag Struan did it. She ordered it left that way.”

  “Why?”

  “It pleased her. She was tai-pan.”

  “Seriously, why?”

  “I was serious.” Dunross shrugged. “She hated her father and wanted us all to be reminded about our heritage.”

  Casey frowned, then motioned at a portrait on the opposite wall. “That’s her?”

  “Yes. It was done just after she was married.” The girl in the painting was slim, about seventeen, pale blue eyes, fair hair. She wore a low-cut ball gown—tiny waist, budding bosom—an ornate green necklace encircling her throat.

  They stood there looking at the picture for a moment. There was no name on the little brass plaque on the bottom of the ornate gilt frame, just the years, 1824–1917. Casey said, “It’s an ordinary face, pretty but ordinary, except for the lips. They’re thin and tight and disapproving—and tough. The artist captured a lot of strength there. It’s a Quance?”

  “No. We don’t know who painted it. It was supposed to be her favorite portrait. There’s a Quance of her in the Struan penthouse, painted about the same time. It’s quite different, yet very much the same.”

  “Did she ever have a portrait done in later life?”

  “Three. She destroyed them all, the moment they were finished.”

  “Are there any photos of her?”

  “Not to my knowledge. She hated cameras—wouldn’t have one in the house.” Dunross laughed and she saw the tiredness in him. “Once a reporter for the China Guardian took her picture, just before the Great War. Within an hour she sent an armed crew from one of our merchantmen into their offices with orders to burn the place if she didn’t get the negative and all copies back, and if the editor didn’t promise to ‘cease and desist from harassing her.’ He promised.”

  “Surely you can’t do that and get away with it?”

  “No, you can’t—unless you’re tai-pan of the Noble House. Besides, everyone knew that Hag Struan didn’t want her picture taken and this cocky young bastard had broken the rule. She was like the Chinese. She believed every time your picture’s taken you lose part of your soul.”

  Casey peered at the necklace. “Is that jade?” she asked.

  “Emeralds.”

  She gasped. “That must have been worth a fortune.”

  “Dirk Struan willed the necklace to her—it was never to leave Asia—it was to belong to the wife of each tai-pan of the Noble House, an heirloom to be passed on from lady to lady.” He smiled oddly. “Hag Struan kept the necklace all her life, and, when she died, she ordered it burned with her.”

  “Jesus! Was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What a waste!”

  Dunross looked back at the portrait. “No,” he said, his voice different. “She kept Struan’s the Noble House of Asia for almost seventy-five years. She was the tai-pan, the real tai-pan, though others had the title. Hag Struan fought off enemies and catastrophes and kept faith with Dirk’s legacy and smashed the Brocks and did whatever was necessary. So what’s a pretty bauble that probably cost nothing in the first place? It was probably pirated from the treasury of some Mandarin who stole it from someone else, whose peasants paid for it with sweat.”

  Casey watched him staring at the face, almost past it into another dimension. “I only hope I can do as well,” he muttered absently, and it seemed to Casey he was saying it to her, to the girl in the picture.

  Her eyes strayed beyond Dunross to the portrait of Dirk Struan and she saw again the marvelous likeness. There was a strong family resemblance in all the ten large portraits—nine men and the girl—that hung on the walls amid landscapes of all sizes of Hong Kong and Shanghai and Tiensin and many seascapes of the elegant Struan clipper ships and some of their merchantmen. Below the portrait of each tai-pan was a small brass plaque with his name and the years of his life: “Dirk Dunross, 4th Tai-pan, 1852–1894, lost at sea in the India Ocean with all hands in Sunset Cloud” … “Sir Lochlin Struan, 3rd Tai-pan, 1841–1915” … “Alastair Struan, 9th Tai-pan, 1900–” … “Dirk Struan, 1797–1841” … “Ross Lechie Struan, 6th Tai-pan, 1887–1915, Captain Royal Scots Regiment, killed in action at Ypres”

  “So much history,” she said, judging it time to break his thought pattern.

  “Yes. Yes it is,” he said, looking at her now.

  “You’re the 10th tai-pan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you had your portrait done yet?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll have to, won’t you?”

  “Yes, yes in due course. There’s no hurry.”

  “How do you become tai-pan, Ian?”

  “You have to be chosen by the previous one. It’s his decision.”

  “Have you chosen who’ll follow you?”

  “No,” he said, but Casey thought that he had. Why should he tell me, she asked herself. And why are you asking him so many questions?

  She looked away from him. A small portrait caught her attention. “Who’s that?” she asked, disquieted. The man was misshapen, a hunchbacked dwarf, his eyes curious and his smile sardonic. “Was he a tai-pan too?”

  “No. That’s Stride Orlov, he was Dirk’s chief captain. After the tai-pan was killed in the great typhoon and Culum took over, Stride Orlov became master of our clipper fleet. Legend has it he was a great seaman.”

  After a pause she said, “Sorry but there’s something about him that gives me the creeps.” There were pistols in Orlov’s belt and a clipper ship in the background. “It’s a frightening face,” she said.

  “He had that effect on everyone—except the tai-pan and Hag Struan—even Culum was supposed to have hated him.” Dunross turned and studied her and she felt his probing. It made her feel warm and at the same time unsettled.

  “Why did she like him?” she asked.

  “The story is that right after the great typhoon when everyone in Hong Kong was picking up the pieces, Culum included, Devil Tyler started to take over the Noble House. He gave orders, assumed control, treated Culum and Tess like children … he sent Tess aboard his ship, the White Witch, and told Culum to be aboard by sunset or else. As far as Tyler was concerned the Noble House was now Brock-Struan and he was the tai-pan! Somehow or other—no one knows why or how Culum got the courage—my God, Culum was only twenty-one then and Tess sixteen—but Culum ordered Orlov to go aboard the White Witch and fetch his wife ashore. Orlov went alone, at once—Tyler was still ashore at the time. Orlov brought her back and in his wake left one man dead and another half a dozen with broken heads or limbs.” Dunross was looking at her and she recognized the same half-mocking, half-violent, half-devilish smile that was on the tai-pan’s face. “Ever afterwards, Tess—Hag Struan to be—loved him, so they say. Orlo
v served our fleet well until he vanished. He was a fine man, and a great seaman, for all his ugliness.”

  “He vanished? He was lost at sea?”

  “No. Hag Struan said he went ashore one day in Singapore and never returned. He was always threatening to leave and go home to Norway. So perhaps he went home. Perhaps he was knifed. Who knows, Asia’s a violent place, though Hag Struan swore no man could kill Stride Orlov and that it must have been a woman. Perhaps Tyler ambushed him. Who knows?”

  Inexorably her eyes went back to Tyler Brock. She was fascinated by the face and the implications of the knife. “Why did she do that to her father’s image?”

  “One day I’ll tell you but not tonight, except to say that she hammered the knife into the wall with my grandfather’s cricket bat and cursed before God and the devil anyone who took her knife out of her wall.” He smiled at Casey and again she noticed an extraordinary tiredness in him and was glad because her own tiredness was creeping up on her and she did not want to make any mistakes now. He put out his hand. “We have to shake on a deal.”

  “No,” Casey said calmly, glad to begin. “Sorry, I have to cancel out.”

  His smile evaporated. “What?”

  “Yes. Linc told me the changes you want. It’s a two-year deal—that ups our ante so I can’t approve it.”

  “Oh?”

  “No.” She continued in the same flat but pleasant tone, “Sorry, 20 million’s my limit so you’ll have to close with Linc. He’s waiting in the bar.”

  Understanding flashed over his face for an instant—and relief, she thought—and then he was calm again. “Is he now?” he said softly, watching her.

  “Yes.” She felt a wave of heat go through her, her cheeks began to burn and she wondered if the color showed.

  “So we can’t shake, you and I. It has to be Linc Bartlett?”

  With an effort she kept her eyes unwavering. “A tai-pan should deal with a tai-pan.”

  “That’s a basic rule, even in America?” His voice was soft and gentle.

  “Yes.”

  “Is this your idea or his?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Very much.”

  “If I say it’s Linc’s, he loses face, and if I say it’s mine, he still loses face, though in a different way.”

  Dunross shook his head slightly and smiled. The warmth of it increased her inner warmth. Although she was very much in charge of herself, she felt herself responding to his unadulterated masculinity.

  “We’re all bound by face, aren’t we, in some way or another,” he said.

  She did not answer, just glanced away to give herself time. Her eyes saw the portrait of the girl. How could such a pretty girl become known as the Hag, she wondered. It must be hateful to become old in face and body when you’re young at heart and still strong and tough—so unfair for a woman. Will I be known one day as Hag Tcholok? Or “that old dyke Tcholok” if I’m still alone, unmarried, in the business world, the man’s world, still working for the same things they work for—identity, power and money—and hated for being as good or better than they are at it? I don’t care so long as we win, Linc and I. So play the part you’ve chosen tonight, she told herself, and thank the French lady for her advice. “Remember, child,” her father had drummed into her, “remember that advice, good advice, comes from unexpected places at unexpected times.” Yes, Casey thought happily, but for Susanne’s reminder about how a lady should operate in this man’s world, Ian, perhaps I wouldn’t have given you that face-saving formula. But don’t be mistaken, Ian Struan Dunross. This is my deal, and in this I’m tai-pan of Par-Con.

  Casey felt an untoward glow as another current went through her. Never before had she articulated her actual position in Par-Con to herself. Yes, she thought, very satisfied, that’s what I am.

  She looked at the girl in the portrait critically and she saw, now, how wrong she had been before and how very special the girl was. Wasn’t she the tai-pan, in embryo, even then?

  “You’re very generous,” Dunross said, breaking into her thoughts.

  “No,” she replied at once, prepared, and glanced back at him, and she was thinking, If you want the truth, tai-pan, I’m not generous at all. I’m merely being demure and sweet and gentle because it makes you feel more at home. But she said none of this to him, only dropped her eyes and murmured with the right amount of softness, “It’s you who’re generous.”

  He took her hand and bowed over it and kissed it with old-fashioned gallantry.

  She was startled and tried to cover it. No one had ever done that to her before. In spite of her resolve she was moved.

  “Ah Ciranoush,” he said with mock gravity, “any time you need a champion, send for me.” Then he grinned suddenly. “I’ll probably make a bog of it but never mind.”

  She laughed, all tension gone now, liking him very much. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  Casually he put his arm around her waist and gently propelled her toward the stairs. The contact with him felt good—too good, she thought. This one’s no child. Be cautious.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  11:58 P.M.:

  Phillip Chen’s Rolls screeched to a halt in the driveway of his house. He got out of the backseat, flushed with rage, Dianne nervously in tow. The night was dark, the lights of the city and ships and high rises blazing far below. “Bolt the gates, then you come inside too,” he snapped to his equally nervous chauffeur, then hurried for the front door.

  “Hurry up, Dianne,” he said, irritably shoving his key into the lock.

  “Phillip, what on earth’s the matter with you? Why can’t you tell me? Wh—”

  “Shut up!” he shouted, his temper snapping, and she jerked to a halt, shocked. “Just shut up and do what you’re told!” He ripped the front door open. “Get the servants here!”

  “But Phi—”

  “Ah Sun! Ah Tak!”

  The two tousled, sleepy amahs appeared hastily out of the kitchen and gaped at him, shocked at his untoward rage. “Yes Father? Yes Mother?” they chorused in Cantonese. “What in the name of all gods ha—”

  “Hold your tongues!” Phillip Chen roared, his neck red and now his face more red. “Go into that room and stay there until I tell you all to come out!” He pulled the door open. It was their dining room and the windows faced the road north. “All of you stay there until I tell you to come out and if any of you moves or looks out of the windows before I come back I’ll … I’ll have some friends put weights on you and get you all thrown into the harbor!”

  The two amahs began wailing but everyone hurriedly obeyed him and he slammed the door shut.

  “Stop it both of you!” Dianne Chen screeched at the amahs, then reached over and pinched one sharply on the cheek. This stopped the old woman’s wailing and she gasped, her eyes rolling, “What’s got into everyone? What’s got into Father? Oh oh oh, his rage’s gone to Java … oh oh oh.…”

  “Shut up, Ah Tak!” Dianne fanned herself, seething, beside herself with fury. What in the name of all gods has got into him? Doesn’t he trust me—me, his only true wife and the love of his life? In all my life … And to rush off like that from the tai-pan’s party when everything was going so fine—us the talk of Hong Kong and everyone admiring my darling Kevin, fawning on him, now surely the new heir of the House of Chen, for everyone agrees John Chen would certainly have died of shock when his ear was cut off. Anyone would! I certainly would.

  She shivered, feeling her own ear being cut again and being kidnapped as in her dream this afternoon when she had awoken in a cold sweat from her nap.

  “Ayeeyah,” she muttered to no one in particular. “Has he gone mad?”

  “Yes, Mother,” her chauffeur said confidently, “I think he has. It’s the result of the kidnapping. I’ve never seen Father like this in all my yea—”

  “Who asked you?” Dianne shrieked. “It’s all your fault anyway! If you’d brought my poor John home instead of leaving him to his mealy-mouthed whores
this would never have happened!”

  Again the two amahs began whimpering at her fury and she turned her spleen on them for a moment, adding, “And as to you two, while I think of it, the quality of service in this house’s enough to give anyone loose bowels. Have you asked me if I need a physic or aspirins? Or tea? Or a cold towel?”

  “Mother,” one of them said placatingly, hopefully pointing at the lacquered sideboard, “I can’t make tea but would you like some brandy?”

  “Wat? Ah, very good. Yes, yes, Ah Tak.”

  At once the old woman bustled over to the sideboard and opened it, brought out some cognac that she knew her mistress liked, poured it into a glass. “Poor Mother, to have Father in such a rage! Terrible! What’s possessed him and why doesn’t he want us to look out of the window?”

  Because he doesn’t want you turtle-dung thieves to see him dig up his secret safe in the garden, Dianne was thinking. Or even me. She smiled grimly to herself, sipping the fine smooth liquor, calmer in the knowledge that she knew where the iron box was buried. It was only right that she should have protected him by secretly watching him bury it, in case, God forbid, the gods took him from this earth before he could tell her where the secret hiding place was. It had been her duty to break her promise not to watch him that night during the Japanese Occupation when he had wisely scooped up all their valuables and hidden them.

  She did not know what was in the box now. She did not care. It had been opened and closed many times, all in secret, as far as he was concerned. She did not care so long as she knew where her husband was, where all his deposit boxes of various kinds were, their keys, just in case.

  After all, she told herself confidently, if he dies, without me the House of Chen will crumble. “Stop sniveling, Ah Sun!” She got up and closed the long drapes. Outside the night was dark and she could see nothing of the garden, only the driveway, the tall iron gates and the road beyond.

  “More drink, Mother?” the old amah asked.

  “Thank you, little oily mouth,” she replied affectionately, the warmth of the spirit soothing her anger away. “And then you can massage my neck. I’ve got a headache. You two sit down, hold your tongues and don’t make a sound till Father gets back!”